Vying for your love
by Estelluerite
Summary: Just as things have started settling down at the Mikage Shrine, Nanami meets a person from her past. And he wants her back! Who will Nanami choose? ...Or rather, who will he LET her choose? Tomoe x Nanami VS possessive!OC x Nanami.


…

"Dude, c'mon. You have to go with us! There was this super hot girl dancing at the shrine last time. We GOTTA go check her out again!"

"Ah, but I heard she was like, 17 or something, man. She would be three years older than us, dammit."

"Whatever, who cares, ya buzzkill. Hey, who knows, maybe she won't totally blow us off then."

Ryuu rolled his eyes at his friends antics. This wasn't the first time they had tried to convince him into going with them to the second annual Mikage Shrine Festival. Last year, the Mikage Shrine held its first festival, and they had nagged him about it for days on end. But this time, they had mentioned a "super hot girl"...

He smirked. Sure, this "super hot girl" probably wouldn't think anything of him, but at least he would be able to stare up at her rack from down below.

"Ahaha! Look, Ryuu smiled. I'm taking that as a "yes, I'll go" then!" His friends snickered.

Ryuu's eyes widened. "Wait, what? I never said I would go! I was just thinking about what her boobs would look like."

Grinning back at him, his friends sing-songed, "Well, if you don't go, you'll never know what they really look like~"

Ryuu sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "... fine, fine, I'll go with you this time. Just don't try to sneak into my room in the middle of the night again!"

His friends exchanged mischievous looks.

"We did no such thing~"

…

 _Clang! Clang! Clang!_

The cymbals crashed together at a steady beat at the rowdy festival.

Ryuu's eyebrow twitched. He disliked crowded hordes of people all gathered together at once place, and preferred the quiet solitude of his bedroom much better.

A few minutes later, the very cheerful host (who was not female, unfortunately) went up to a podium and announced that the main event would be starting in a few minutes. They would be having the dancer who performed last year "dispel the miasma" again in hopes that "everybody would leave the shrine feeling refreshed" after this year's performance.

Ryuu turned to his friends. "Sounds like a whole lotta bullshit, if you ask me," he said skeptically. But his friends only snickered in response. "Just watch it, Ryuu! Who cares if it's bullshit, there's a hot girl and we're gonna get her!"

Ryuu sighed some more and grabbed some steamed buns off of the food stand they were standing near.

"Okay, fine… let's go then."

His friends cheered and whooped all the way there.

…

A lavishly dressed young woman slowly stepped onto the stage, bells in hand. As the live music started to perform, she started her entrancing dance movements that enraptured everyone in the audience. There were even news reporters that had shut their loud, gossiping mouths in awe of the lady softly ringing her bells with every swift step.

As Ryuu watched her, he instantly regretted not coming to last year's performance. How could he have missed something as spell-binding as this just for some cheap porn he found on the Internet?

In his opinion, this was much better.

But there was something faintly familiar about this dancer, even under the numerous robes she donned, and the heavy makeup she had applied…

Eyes widening, he thought a near impossible thought as he watched the performer on stage.

 _But it couldn't be…_

… _Nanami-chan?!_

…

He pushed and shoved his way closer, and closer, and closer until he was in the front row, with a perfect view of the dancer. And he saw…

… _that it was really his Nanami-chan._

He gasped and he kept watching her with wide eyes, but he was too scared to call out to her and break the spell she had cast upon the audience.

But then she turned to his side of the audience and bending down to complete another movement, she spotted him for the first time in _years._

As her eyes widened, her steps faltered for a second, but trying to keep in time with the music, she kept going and tried to recover from the slight hesitation.

But they both were thinking the same thing at that very moment…

 _... it really is you that has come to meet me again._

…

He had waited in nervous anticipation all the way until the performance was done.

But when it was, he ran up to Nanami and met her halfway for the hug they had run to each other for.

As she wrapped her arms around him, she whispered, "...it's been so long, Ryuu…"

"I've missed you."

Pulling away she took a good, long look at him.

"Wow, Ryuu, you've grown a lot! You are as tall as me now!"

He chuckled in response, and brushed some hair out of her face. "Yeah. I'm still in junior high though, but I'll be in high school next year!" He smiled mischievously at her. "I'll come to torment you once again."

"...Now tell me, where have you been all these years?"

Nanami looked at him straight in the eye.

She took a deep breath before exhaling carefully.

"...Come into the shrine, and I'll explain everything."

…

They took a seat on the floor.

"... Are you ready for this?"

Ryuu cocked his head at her in questioning. "Um… yes?"

"Okay. Well...um… a year ago, Dad ran out on me and the house right before the landlord came to collect the money. After he ran out, the landlord kicked me out of the house." She shivered as she relived that horrible, horrible memory of that cold, helpless night she spent the majority of on that little wooden bench.

"But then Mikage, who is the… ah… owner, we could say, of this shrine found me, and um… invited me to stay at the shrine, provided that I help take care of it… and stuff. So, um, yeah, that's pretty much it…" _Not._ she thought to herself, inwardly giggling at the explanation she gave.

Ryuu raised an eyebrow in suspicion. "And that's it? And you never came to visit me again?"

Nanami laughed a bit awkwardly, trying to loosen up the atmosphere. "Well, I've just been so busy tending to the shrine and with schoolwork, haha! I'm so sorry. We'll try to hang out more, m'kay?" She smiled at him with a hopeful expression on her face.

Ryuu sighed. "Yeah, of course. But first, I've gotta meet this "Mikage" you've been talking about. So you two just live alone, together?" His tone of voice was suspicious, and she could tell that he wasn't completely buying into the whole thing.

But she shook her head in response at his assumption. "Actually, Mikage isn't here right now… sorry. But I live with two other people, uh, hold on lemme go get them…" she trailed off as she stood up, walking away into the halls of the shrine.

He could hear her call out, "Tomoe! Mizuki! Come out and introduce yourselves to Ryuu!" as she paced around, looking for them.

A few minutes later she came back with two men at her side, both with young faces, yet with silvery hair.

Ryuu started to scowl as he pondered, _how is silver hair like that even possible…?_

Nanami, on the other hand, was smiling as she started introducing them.

"Okay Ryuu, the taller one on my left with the mean looking face is-"

Said person immediately whipped around to face Nanami and said, "I can introduce myself, you know! You were the one that said "come introduce yourselves" in the first place!" with a death glare on his face. But contradictorily, he said, "And I don't have a mean-looking face," even though he had that ticked off, death-glarish expression as he stared down at Nanami.

In response, Nanami slowly turned to look up at the man, with her own mocking death glare. And in a strained voice, she said, "Then introduce yourself, and don't cause a ruckus when Ryuu is right here." With that she grabbed the other man on her right, who had been smiling peacefully (and seemed a bit like he was off in his own world), and still with that mocking death glare on her face, she said "And Mizuki will introduce himself, too, Tomoe! But unlike you, _he won't cause a ruckus in front of little Ryuu!_ "

Ryuu perked up and wanted to jump in and disprove Nanami's claim that he was "little", but stayed silent just so that way the fight in front of him could end quicker.

Nanami sighed and glanced up at the one she had called "Tomoe". "Anyways…"

"Tomoe" cleared his throat, and said, "I'm Tomoe, and I am also one of the keepers of the shrine." He glanced at Nanami, who was rapidly nodding in agreement with his statement.

Next Nanami looked at the one she had called "Mizuki" for his introduction. "Mizuki" smiled, and said "Right! I'm Mizuki, and I'm a keeper of the shrine too, but I am the BETTER one~" he smirked mischievously at Tomoe at that.

"OI, MIZUKI-" Tomoe started, but Nanami cut him off and broke the two up by covering their mouths with her hands and wedging herself in between them.

"Haha, so yeah Ryuu, this is my home now! I live with these two idiots most of the time, but Mikage doesn't really show up that much anymore…"

Ryuu blinked, trying to take it all in.

"Ahaha… okay…"

...


End file.
